Page 15 - LatAmOil Week 24

LatAmOil VENEZUEL A LatAmOil

Last year, though, it attained self-sufficiency a glut and exporting only five gasoline cargoes a
with the third phase of its 350,000 barrels per month, to Asia and Africa, Iran was more than
day (bpd) Persian Gulf Star refinery in the port happy to meet Venezuela’s request for fuel, one
of Bandar Abbas. of the sources quoted by Reuters said.
Even before the coronavirus (COVID-19) When the COVID-19 crisis passes and Iran’s
pandemic hit demand, oversupply of gasoline in domestic demand for fuel picks up to an esti-
Iran had reached 84,000 bpd in the last quarter mated 550,000 bpd, Iran should still have the
of 2019, according to energy consultancy FGE. capacity to send two to three cargoes to Vene-
Lacking the storage capacity to handle such zuela per month. ™

PdVSA decides not to send

Iranian gasoline to Cuba

VENEZUELA’S national oil company (NOC) the production of gasoline at the 305,000 barrel
PdVSA has reportedly decided against sending per day (bpd) Cardon refinery, which has been
some of the gasoline it recently received from offline since late January.
Iran to Cuba. According to an internal report cited by
Earlier this month, Argus Media said PdVSA Argus Media, PdVSA is using an 86,000 bpd
had set about 100,000 barrels of Iranian gasoline fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) unit to turn out
aside for delivery to Cuba. Citing three com- low-octane gasoline. As of June 14, the report
pany officials with knowledge of the matter, it said, the unit was producing about 47,000 bpd of
reported that PdVSA had allowed the Carlota gasoline with an octane level of below 87.
C, a Cuban-registered vessel also known as the The Cardon refinery is blending some of this
Maria Cristina, to dock at the Venezuelan port gasoline with alkylate imported from Iran in
of El Palito so that the gasoline could be trans- order to improve octane levels, said Ivan Freites,
ferred into its tanks and sent to Cuba. a senior leader of Venezuela’s oil and gas work-
Now, though, the NOC appears to have ers’ union. As a result, he told Argus Media, the
abandoned this plan. According to Venezuelan plant is now turning out about 31,000 bpd of
government officials and representatives of the 91-octane gasoline. ™
oil workers’ union, PdVSA will instead use the
Carlota C as a floating storage facility. The ship
will continue to serve this purpose until more
onshore storage capacity becomes available, the
officials said.
A representative of the Venezuelan presi-
dential administration told Argus Media earlier
this week that PdVSA had taken this step in a bid
to expand its onshore storage capacity. He also
noted, however, that the company had acted in
response to the Defence Ministry’s criticism of
the Petroleum Ministry’s plans for sending gas-
oline to Cuba.

Cardon refinery back online
In related news, PdVSA has reportedly resumed The Cardon refinery is producing limited amounts of gasoline (Photo: Mercopress)

BOLIVIA
YPFB lowers floor for gas exports to Brazil

BOLIVIA’S national oil company (NOC) YPFB YPFB made an announcement to that effect
has agreed to let the minimum volume of natu- earlier in the week, saying that it had revised
ral gas pumped through an overland pipeline to the obligations spelled out in an existing supply
Brazil drop from 14mn cubic metres per day to agreement at the request of its Brazilian coun-
10 mcm per day. terpart Petrobras.

Week 24 18•June•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P15